Date Time
Kombucha-inspired microbial mixture let scientists create ‘living materials’
Imperial and MIT researchers have made smart living materials by engineering microbes to detect and react to their environment.
The materials, known as engineered living materials (ELMs), could be used to detect and filter contaminants in water, in packaging to detect and alert to damage using fluorescence, and act as ‘living photographs’ which display pictures projected onto them.
Our new system moves us forward by creating materials that are scalable and therefore more likely to be useful in the real world Charlie Gilbert Department of Bioengineering
These ELMs are made by a mutually beneficial (symbiotic) combination of yeast and bacteria similar to those found in ‘kombucha mother’ – a mixture used to brew the fermented tea drink kombucha. It is also known as symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY).
This is no ordinary space shammy.
Dec 18th, 2020
Lisa B Bistreich-Wolfe
Researchers at the Army s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology develop an acoustic fabric being tested on the International Space Station could be used to develop space dust telescopes and allow astronauts to feel through their pressurized suits.
pace BD/JAXA, Composite by Juliana Cherston, MIT
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - An Army-funded smart fiber being tested on the International Space Station could be used to develop space dust telescopes and allow astronauts to feel through their pressurized suits.
Researchers at the Army s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed an acoustic fabric so sensitive to vibrations that it can detect impacts from microscopic high velocity space particles. A more earthly application of these fabrics could be for blast detection and in the future act as sensitive microphones
| UPDATED: 12:54, Fri, Dec 18, 2020
Link copied Sign up for FREE for the biggest new releases, reviews and tech hacks
SUBSCRIBE Invalid email
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters.
Sometimes they ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer.
Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights.
You can unsubscribe at any time.
So-called “smart fibre” is currently being tested on the International Space Station (ISS). Because this “bridges the physical and digital domains”, the material could open day be used to improve both military and commercial items.